


the buried moon

by berryandfriends



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 10:25:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6048081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/berryandfriends/pseuds/berryandfriends
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, Rey was the moon, and Kylo Ren was just a man. — a rendition of the English fairy tale 'The Buried Moon.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	the buried moon

**Author's Note:**

> The Buried Moon is an English fairytale included in 'More English Fairy Tales' by Joseph Jacobs. It also goes by The Dead Moon, and was also retold by Charles de Lint as 'The Moon Is Drowning While I Sleep.' 
> 
> This follows the basic story of The Buried Moon, but of course, I had to add a few embellishments of my own — namely two new favorites of mine, Kylo Ren and Rey. I hope I've done them justice.

Once upon a time, Rey was the moon. Stars were formed at the heels of her feet, and the light came from the softness of her eyes. Few believed in her; she was a myth, they claimed, a beauty to imagine but never to see.

But she was very real, and only when she arrived were the people on the land of Naboo safe to roam as they were in the day. For in the time between the sunfall and the moonrise, evil things emerged from their caves and preyed among the thick, messy hearts of the people.

Rey did not know this. Indeed, she was ignorant of the world beneath her, although not for lack of wishing. Mouth smiling and eyes longing, she spent many nights looking down upon Naboo, wondering of the colors it contained, for she only ever saw the soft yellow of her own glow.

The sun — whose name was Finn — told her in passing about the world below: the greens and the blues, the rolling hills and roaring waves.

One day, the sun heard the people speaking in fear of the evil things, and he immediately thought of his friend, the moon.

You see, Finn was afraid his friend would leave him in the sky, alone and lonely. He loved Rey, loved her like his own. He did not want the moon to leave him, and worried that her love of Naboo would steal her away. After all, Rey was the queen of the night, and Finn did not trust the night. He only knew of the warmth of day.

Thinking he would scare her away from the land of Naboo, Finn told Rey the stories of the evil things and the wickedness they carried like disease, like war, like famine, like death.

Much to the sun’s surprise, the moon was not frightened; rather, she wanted to see these things for herself. The sun wept as she left to battle the unknown. He stayed behind and bore the weight of the world alone, and Naboo fell to the darkness.

The evil things came creeping out.

With a cloak over her eyes, Rey walked on Naboo. She could not see much in the thick of the night, and stumbled into a ditch. The cloth of her cloak caught on a thorn and she found herself stuck, for as hard as she pulled at her cloak, it would not come free. Her heart pounded. She could not fight what she could not see; she did not know how to.

The evil things crept closer.

So did a man.

She sensed his presence, lost and angry. Her heart softened at the despair in this man’s heart, and so she unveiled her eyes. Then the light came to being and made a single path in the dark, a pale yellow for the man to follow.

Their eyes met, and Rey’s heart stilled. He had long dark hair, not unlike the midnight, and shadowed eyes. His features were strong, brighter under the moonlight. She raised a hand towards him. Her fingers quivered.

He took a step back, unsure and suddenly afraid. This man, the moon felt, did not feel comfortable in the light. Neither did he feel comfortable in the dark. He was a strange in-between, and she wanted to know why.

“What is your name?” asked the moon.

“Kylo Ren,” answered the man.

Name given, he turned and ran. Her hand lowered, and the evil things came upon her. They dropped a stone over the ditch and laughed with glee. The moon’s light was now covered, and they were free to wreck havoc as they pleased.

Rey covered her eyes with her cloak and saved her strength. The image of a man, wide-eyed and confused, was frozen in her thoughts. She knew he would return to save her. She hoped.

~*~

The night came and it went, and the sun peered down upon the earth to look for his friend. He wept when he saw that she was no longer walking among the living, and he cursed the evil things for taking her away.

His friend, the moon, was gone. Finn mourned, and the people below brought out their umbrellas that day and wondered why it rained like winter in the warm months.

In a land not too far away, a man named Kylo Ren remembered the moon. He could not recall the memory of her eyes, but he did remember her mouth, softly parted, gently lifted.

Hard as he tried, he could not understand who she was, or what she had done. He did not know she was the moon, after all; in fact, Kylo Ren did not believe in such legends. He barely believed in himself.

Now, Kylo Ren was one of the men who lived his life traveling, searching for an obscure happy ending. Upon reaching Naboo, he was surprised to find that it was wet and dreary. Even the sun seemed to have turned his face away from Naboo, for the day was barely lit, and the people whispered that the moon had not appeared for many nights.

This was not where he would find happiness, he knew. But still, he stayed, for he never left a place until his questions were answered.

A wise old woman saw his great, looming figure and noted the regal sweep of his nose. She firmly believed that such noses only belonged to good men, for her husband was the only man she knew to have such a nose. She approached him with great curiosity, and asked of his story.

He told her nothing, so used to being alone that he did not know how to let another in. The wise old woman began telling him her story instead, and he listened, although he wanted to walk away.

She and her husband had a son, the wise old woman said, but the son had been stolen by the evil things one sorry night. When the wise old woman went to find him, the evil things whispered to her that they could not give him back, because one day, their little boy would bring an end to all evil things.

Her son was lost to the world, dead for all she knew. And Kylo Ren listened because he did not have much else to do, and because he knew this story very well.

The wise old woman was his mother, you see. But she would never know that her son had returned to him by pure coincidence; Kylo Ren thought it cruel, to disappoint her so. After all, he was not the son she’d imagined. He was no hero, and he had brought an end to nothing. The evil things were still evil, and Kylo Ren believed they always would be.

Both ashamed and resentful, he turned his face away and asked why the moon had run away from the sky.

Then the wise old woman, ignorant of the miracle who stood before her, told the legend of the evil things and the beautiful moon. Kylo Ren remembered the girl he had left behind and wondered in the depths of his heart, if he had been wrong to run.

And although Kylo Ren was not a man for saving, he resolved to free the girl who had saved his life.

~*~

The night was still, and it was long, and it was cold. Kylo Ren did not shiver, for he had been raised in the ice of the dark. His only childhood memories were of the night: listening to the whispers of the evil things, their cruel laughter and bedtime tales of how happy his family was without him. He had watched the world come to light through a crack in a cave until one day, he knew the dark well enough to escape it.

Though he could not tell his mother the truth, and though he could not destroy the evil things, he could do this. He could steal the girl away.

The evil things stayed away from him, sensing that he was one of them and yet different from them. There are few things that are more frightening than what we do not know, and the evil things certainly did not understand Kylo Ren.

It did not take him very long to find the stone. He could hear the moon’s heart beating a melody that he followed carefully until it was loud and nearly deafening. Unsheathing a lightsaber, Kylo Ren cut the stone into pieces until it fell into the ditch in a shower of pebbles.

Underneath was the moon: cloaked, quiet, graceful.

A pale hand rose from the ditch and he took it. Then the moon pulled herself out of the ditch using Kylo Ren as an anchor. Though he expected her to let go, she held on. And there it was again: her mouth.

“What is your name?” asked the man.

“My name is Rey,” answered the moon, “and you are the man who came back.”

And indeed, he was. For he was more than the moon, and he was more than the sun; he was a man, and he was free, and he was the reason Rey was free.

“How can I thank you?” asked Rey, who stood smiling up at him.

“Your eyes,” whispered Kylo Ren, “I think that I would like to see your eyes.”

Rey released his hand and removed the cloak from her eyes. The light did not blind his eyes, for the moonlight is much softer than the sunshine. Instead, Kylo Ren found that her eyes reflected his very soul back to him.

He thought her beautiful, in a way that was unreal, not quite human, and very much terrifying.

And the moon knew she would always remember Kylo Ren, who hid an entire planet in his chest and lightning in his fingertips.

It is a sad truth of life, but not all tales can have happy endings. Indeed, Kylo Ren had saved the moon, but he still had not found his happy ending. And the moon, now freed, was still bound to her lonesome home in the sky.

Then an idea came to her, one that Rey knew the sun would not approve of. But Finn had not approved of this, either, and she believed in Kylo Ren, who had returned for her.

She whispered her thoughts to Kylo Ren, who had only ever wanted peace. For perhaps the first time in his life, he felt something akin to hope. He accepted her offer, knowing that there was no home for him on the earth.

And so, Rey returned to her place in the heavens. And Kylo Ren followed, to remain at her side forevermore as the stars.

Today, Rey steps into the sky before the sun falls so that Naboo will never see the evil things again. And because the sun does not like Kylo Ren very much, the stars only come forward after Finn leaves.

The night belongs to the moon and the stars, and neither are very lonely anymore now that they have each other. Which is the point of all stories, really: to find someone to help with the loneliness, especially at night.


End file.
